Roll With It, Baby

From writer Reaper0Bot0 via Jack and Jill Politics, MyDD and The Motley Moose:

There are too many people, far too many white people, who would like nothing better than to be able to see Barack as another angry black man demanding what (such people would insist) he hasn’t earned. Such crass bullshit has a way of becoming conventional wisdom altogether too quickly. And yes, I’m speaking ill of a sub-set of my fellow caucasians. Back home in South Carolina this sort of thing is more common than it should be.

All that being said, I think a lot of Kossacks, a lot of members of the Netroots more generally, we seem to miss a fundamental truth. He can’t bring down the angry fist of justice on them, no matter how right it would be for him to do so, no matter how just. We can, and we should. We can be angry, we can be brazen, bold, and brash.

Please stop hoping, and for fuck’s sake stop asking Barack to lay the smackdown on John McCain and friends. In a moment of truth, of furious and righteous anger, Barack would disarm himself.

In the uncharted waters of presidential victory for a person of color, one cannot navigate without the dance. The trick is to do it well enough to get you where you need to be but not so well that those not of color realize that you dance (think, politic, educate, reason, listen, answer, compromise, organize, plan, garner, inspire, parent) better than they. It seems a tricky step, but if you do it enough in your lifetime, it's mastered. Much like the Electric Slide.

Break out in some off-time half-step down-beat boogaloo and you might as well yell "Ungawa."

With much respect to Joy Engel below, as well as others who have called for Obama's campaign to "grow a pair," I gotta suggest that perhaps you're not listening to the clanking steel it takes to focus on what's necessary to achieve what's necessary. Even in the face of lies told and pancake boxes sold. And accomplished without bartering self or objectives.

This country doesn't need me like I believe it needs Sen. Obama; my troubles ain't like his. But I sympathize with him because I know this dance real real well. It hurts making a point with any kind of fervor, a point you're dead to rights on I might add, and being dismissed as an angry black woman.

Right, together, right, step; left, together, left, step; back, two, three, step...

Cross-posted to Attackerman.